SPECIAL ARTICLE Economic & Political Weekly EPW AUGUST 13, 2016 vol lI no 33 65 Living Together Separately Dalits in an Emergent Collectivity in a Rajasthan Village Shashi Bhushan Singh Thanks are due to the anonymous referee for his/her illuminating comments. Shashi Bhushan Singh (shashi_dse@yahoo.co.in) teaches sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. This is the story of a village where Dalits have become economically and politically powerful, and are trying to raise their status in the local social hierarchy, but encounter fierce resistance from the upper castes. As a result, social life becomes complex and complicated to the extent that almost the entire institutional framework, which brings order and stability in society, is being questioned and contested with different castes living in a “hostile” social environment. Such an emergent collectivity gives birth to caste and communal conflicts, “honour” killings, and has implications for the functioning of democratic institutions and implementation of development programmes. R ampur village (in Rajsamand district, Rajasthan) is situated in the Aravalli mountain system. The Rajputs, who were the political representatives of the princely state of Udaipur (of which the village was a part), and local rulers provided the nucleus and political stability to the vil- lage’s sociopolitical life. As the area is mountainous and the quality of agricultural land is poor, people prefer to settle near their agricultural plots. Thus, the village has many satellite settlements locally known as bhagals. There are 14 castes in Rampur. The Brahmins, Rajputs, and Mahajans are the upper castes. The backward classes are di- vided into two groups: Other Backward Classes ( OBCs ) and Most Backward Classes ( MBCs ). There are Scheduled Castes ( SCs ) and Scheduled Tribes ( STs ) in the village (Table 1, p 66). 1 Agriculture has traditionally been the mainstay of economic activities (Table 2, p 66). However, undulating topography, poor quality of soil, and low availability of water mean that agricul- ture is only at the subsistence level. Though there are some families who own more than 30 acres of land, only less than a fourth of that land is arable, the rest being mountainous and only useful for grazing. As the land is not able to sustain the livelihood of the people, there is migration from the village. 2 Thus, the main source of generation of wealth is not the village agricultural land, but secondary and tertiary occupations, mostly located outside the village. This has led to the breakdown in the relation between castes and occupations, with the result that except for the most pure, like priestly functions, and the most im- pure, like removing dead cattle, there is no hard and fast rule about this relation. Market mentality has acquired priority over social obligations. The Brahmins act as priests in the village, own substantial land, are educated, and live in a separate bhagal. Though their numerical strength is not much in the village, they have an important place in the village power structure, mainly due to their contact within the Brahmin faction of the Congress party. The post-independence economic and political order has not been very favourable to the Rajputs’ political dominance in the village. Some of the Rajputs are economically better off, but others are poor. Still, the Rajputs enjoy high social status in the village. There are two rawlas (small fort like structures) of Rajputs; one located in the east, and the other in the west. It is the western rawla that is economically more developed now, though traditionally the seat of power was with the eastern rawla. Among the Rajputs, the grand old man Nahar Singh had undisputed hold over his caste men. Now, one of his